The present invention relates to a device for transferring a liquid to a ship, of the type comprising:                a loading platform intended to be integral with the ship;        at least one manifold which opens out onto the platform;        at least one displaceable tubular connection intended to connect the manifold to a flexible hose for distributing liquid, the flexible hose being supported by a liquid distribution installation.        
A device of this type is particularly suitable for transferring liquefied natural gas (LNG) between a transport ship and an offshore installation for storing the product and/or an installation for unloading this product, known as a terminal.
It is known to load or unload tankers at sea by mooring said tanker to an offshore loading or unloading terminal to transport liquefied natural gas between offshore production regions and storage areas in the vicinity of the coast.
These terminals preferably comprise a flexible cryogenic hose which is suspended from a gantry crane provided on the terminal.
In order to allow the ship to be loaded or unloaded with LNG, the flexible cryogenic hose should be connected to a loading pipe system, referred to as the “manifold” of a tanker.
Since there is a large number of tankers on the seas, it is necessary to provide a displaceable rigid connection which can adapt to the flexible hose on the one hand and to the manifold of a particular ship on the other.
For this purpose, EP-A1 324 994 discloses a transfer device of the aforementioned type in which the tubular connection is stored on the offshore LNG loading/unloading installation when at rest, and is subsequently connected to the ship manifold by a crane after the ship has moored to the installation.
A device of this type is not entirely satisfactory, since when seas are rough the relative movement of the ship in relation to the installation makes fixing a rigid tubular connection to the manifold considerably more difficult. These manoeuvring difficulties make transferring liquid time-consuming and not very reliable.